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I purchased whole set of embroidery thread and it is too thin (how I will return it is a different matter)

What should I look for when searching thick thread?

Amazon doesn't show any sort of weight or metric.

For example, I wish to purchase the type of thick thread shown below.

enter image description here

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  • Did you buy embroidery THREAD (for machine embroidery) or embroidery FLOSS (for hand embroidery)?
    – Allison C
    Sep 25, 2019 at 19:16
  • @AllisonC I bought THREAD :-(
    – Marium
    Sep 25, 2019 at 19:17
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    Then if you're hand-embroidering, buy supplies designed for hand embroidery, not machine thread.
    – Allison C
    Sep 25, 2019 at 19:18

1 Answer 1

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One thicker variety of embroidery thread is called perle cotton. That might be what's in the video, though I can't quite tell. It is sized by numbers, where a smaller number indicates a thicker thread. You might be interested in a size 3 or 5 perle cotton.

If what you got originally was 6-ply embroidery floss, you wouldn't see sizes listed because it only comes in one size. That material can also be separated so you can use fewer strands, which is not true of perle cotton; that seems to me to help perle cotton threads stay round when you stitch with them, instead of flattening out.

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  • would yarn also work? Such as sock yarn, or linen yarn? Floss looks really expensive. It's good for friendship bracelets but I am looking to do embroidery for 42 inch by 96 inch stole.
    – Marium
    Sep 25, 2019 at 19:28
  • @Marium floss is dirt cheap, considerably less than thread. It's designed for exactly what you want to do; "friendship bracelets" are just a repurposing of it.
    – Allison C
    Sep 26, 2019 at 12:53
  • @Marium My one concern about yarn would be smoothness - as you stitch, the thread/yarn will rub against the fabric over and over again, and yarn is more likely to get fuzzy because of the rubbing. Cotton crochet thread (sold for crochet, but called thread instead of yarn because it is thin) might be a less expensive option for a large amount of embroidery using a small number of colors, but if you need many colors (and so smaller amounts of each) I don't know whether you would save money that way.
    – Reve
    Sep 26, 2019 at 16:49
  • You have a good point @Reve. I was testing scraps of bamboo silk yarn and it does get fuzzy. I just purchased a single cotton cone to start --- looks promising, amazon.com/gp/product/B001BF7QFA/…
    – Marium
    Sep 26, 2019 at 17:00

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